


All The Stars Are Closer

by spockandawe



Series: For The Life, For The Day, For The Hours [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Erik Killmonger Lives, Gen, Near Death, Post-Canon, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 17:32:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13956579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: If it were up to you, you would’ve been out of your rooms and on the move the minute you were able. Cell? Room? Whichever, doesn’t make much difference in the end, does it.Bad enough waking up in the first place, after you said, yousaid—But it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Shouldn’t be a shock to find the lord high king of wherever doing whatever the fuck he wants, even if you didn’t already know that’s already the basis for Wakandan international and domestic policy. Kind of makes it worse waking up with only a memory of pain, and when you pull up your shirt to look, there’s barely even a scar to mark the occasion of that one time you decided you were ready to die. Definitely makes it worse that you’re pretty sure T’Challa thinks he’s doing you afavor.





	All The Stars Are Closer

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/171817676611/all-the-stars-are-closer-spockandawe-marvel)

If it were up to you, you would’ve been out of your rooms and on the move the minute you were able. Cell? Room? Whichever, doesn’t make much difference in the end, does it.

Bad enough waking up in the first place, after you said, you _said—_ But it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Shouldn’t be a shock to find the lord high king of wherever doing whatever the fuck he wants, even if you didn’t already know that’s already the basis for Wakandan international and domestic policy. Kind of makes it worse waking up with only a memory of pain, and when you pull up your shirt to look, there’s barely even a scar to mark the occasion of that one time you decided you were ready to die. Definitely makes it worse that you’re pretty sure T’Challa thinks he’s doing you a _favor._

Anyways, once you were conscious, it was clear enough what happened, even without your little cousin, the one with the _attitude,_ fussing all over you. Gotta give her props, she does a decent job pretending like she’s not scared of you. Maybe that’s just teens being teens (and you were all up and ready to kill her, remember?), but you’re pretty sure she’s smarter than that. You can tell she’s keeping a careful eye on you even when it looks like all her attention’s on her console, or what you can read off her body language while she’s giving you shit for being a difficult patient.

Yeah, the annoyance definitely isn’t an act, and you kind of resent the way you want to laugh at how _this_ is the thing she’s decided to be bothered by.

You watch her without talking for a little after you wake up, waiting for her to run out of words. It’s a passable cover waiting for your head to clear and thinking your way through what must’ve happened. Not hard to figure out. Not many steps from a to b, mostly just the one step where your cousin decided to ignore that last request you made. You know, that dying request, the one you said right to his face. That one. This cousin must be doing her brother proud with how hard she’s ignoring you.

And she might be avoiding meeting your eyes, but it doesn’t seem like she’s going to run out of steam anytime soon, so as soon as you feel like you’re good for it, you try to push yourself upright.

Your body might not hurt, but you feel _off,_ that’s the first thing you notice. Second is that your cousin plants her hand right in the middle of your chest and shoves you back down.

“And _stay there,”_ Shuri says. “Honestly, what did I just waste my time telling you?”

You could keep up the silent thing, but let’s be real, you were never much good at that game. “Lots of things that didn’t involve ‘stay in bed and don’t get up’, princess.” You do catch the way she twitches and frowns when you call her that, so that’s at least something.

“Oh good, you _do_ talk. That’s just… wonderful?” You’re already opening your mouth with a retort, but she waves you off before you can say a word. “Anyways, you’re just going to get up the minute I leave, and I have better things to do than babysit you. I’m at least going to update you on what happened, so you can know what bad decisions you’re making as you make them.”

You cross your arms. You’re wearing a bracelet. What’s this, the Wakandan version of an ankle monitor? “How long was I out?”

She rolls her eyes. _“Four days.”_

“That’s bullshit—”

“No it’s not, not when you’re busy taking organ damage and putting off treatment like this. And pulling out the knife? Who does that? I thought you were supposed to be highly trained, the knife was keeping the blood _inside you,_ but sure, let’s pull that out and start bleeding out on top of everything else. If you’d made my life easy and let my brother stabilize you when it happened, this would have been an overnight job, but no, _four days_ of work. Happy?”

You’ve seen enough miracle tech since you got here that you’re… almost willing to admit that might be possible. You can’t make yourself believe it yet, not when you were dying and now there’s barely even a mark on you, but. It could be possible. You guess.

And there’s also whatever powers you’ve got from that heart-shaped herb shit. Which you aren’t going to mention, because right now you need whatever edge you can get and you’re not going to remind them to take those away. Unless they did it while you were out? You feel better than you should, but how do you tell the difference between the effects of tech and powers? _Fuck,_ this is weird.

Besides, more than anything… you feel used up. _Ti_ _red._ Some background corner of your brain is working out angles and plans and ways forward, but most of you— You just can’t make the connection between seeing how to get out of this, even seeing how to get your plans back on track, and actually _doing_ it. There’s probably twenty different ways these people are underestimating you, but you can already tell that even if you settle on a plan and decide to go for it, you’re going to stall out, and it won’t be anybody’s fault but yours.

Shuri’s still staring at you like she’s waiting on an answer, but it’s not happening, sorry to disappoint, princess. You focus on pushing yourself upright again, a little at a time, waiting for your head to clear every time you feel a rush of dizziness. Four days in bed won’t keep you off your feet, but you’re going to be feeling it for sure.

Your cousin doesn’t move to stop you this time, but she sighs, loud and deliberate, and you ignore both her and the way your mouth twitches like you want to smile.

The room is bare. There’s a closet. A desk and chair. Not much else. Though as you ease your way up into sitting on the edge of the bed, you see a screen behind you fading out into blankness, until it’s indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. Makes you wonder what other secrets this place is hiding. Not a fan. No windows here either. At least the bed is comfortable, and you guess it’s probably the cleanest jail cell you’ve ever had the opportunity to visit.

Seems like Shuri isn’t paying much attention to you, she’s busy fiddling with a little handheld device and the beads of her bracelet, so you take the opportunity to try your feet. That’s— not as good as it could be, but you don’t think you’ll fall over. Some part of you wonders if you could use your cousin as a hostage and bust your way out of here, even if you know the idea’s no good from the start. The tech advantage is just too much, and even if you get away for a little, how long will that last? Besides, just… what’s the point anymore?

Before you can go too far down that road, your cousin tosses something your way, and you catch it without thinking.

It’s whatever she was messing with before, and especially here and now, you’re torn between whether you want to admit to ignorance, or whether you want to embarrass yourself by guessing _wrong,_ but, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was a smartphone.”

She rolls her eyes at you. _“Obviously_ it’s a smartphone. Among other things.”

You turn it over in your hands. No obvious buttons or controls.

“Just use your kimoyo beads.”

You give her a blank look. She makes an exasperated sound and leans over to poke you in the arm, just above the fancy new bracelet. She freezes just about the same time you do, and you don’t miss the quick flash of fear across her face, even though she’s quick to hide it, sets her jaw, and presses on.

“ _These.”_ She flicks a finger against your bracelet. “They do, like, everything.”

You keep your expression neutral, leaning back against the edge of the bed with your posture as relaxed as you can make it. “Did anyone ever tell you that you were good at explanations? Cause if they did, they were probably lying.”

The disgusted look she gives you is the funniest thing you’ve seen in weeks. “Why don’t you learn a little bit and catch up and come by my labs? _Then_ you can see how good my explanations are.”

For a moment, you’re actually kind of feeling it. You’ve heard stories about Wakandan tech ever since you can remember, and you had about a day to catch a glimpse of _modern_ Wakandan tech, and you know you want more. But then you remember that you’re a prisoner. T’Challa isn’t going to want you running around loose in his country. Did your level best to kill the guy, can’t exactly blame him. You’ll just blame him for the part where he ignored everything you told him you wanted and did the exact opposite of that. You think that’s pretty fair.

And you need to stop thinking about Wakandan tech and everything you could be catching up on, _definitely_ need to stop thinking about Klaue’s adapted arm cannon and everything you could be experimenting with. T’Challa’s not going to want you running around his country, and he’s definitely not going to want you running around his baby sister’s workspace. Probably better to focus on more realistic dreams, like maybe if you’re _real_ lucky, you’ll get enough entertainment in here to stop yourself from going crazy with the boredom and isolation.

You think Shuri’s thoughts are running in a similar direction from the way her smile starts to fade. “Just use the kimoyo beads to access the net,” she says, not quite looking at you. “I made it American-style, don’t worry. If you can’t figure out how to do something, they’ll probably help.”

Before you can make much of a reply to that, she leaves. You look the other way, not watching as she goes. The door doesn’t slam, but you glance over in time to see the two halves of the door sliding back together, and the way they close has a sound of finality to it. Ugh. Look at you, describing this shit all melodramatic like that. You need to get over yourself and think practically instead.

For starters, you’ve gotta wonder if they go high-tech with all their jails, if they’re just depending on the tech to keep you locked up or if there’s a more physical failsafe backing it up. Makes you wonder what would happen if you had some of the experimental Stark-brand disruptor tech you’ve gotten to test-drive a time or two in the past. Or maybe it wouldn’t get you anywhere in Wakanda. Probably not, to be honest.

Though hey, smartphone. Among other things. Apparently. More quality explanations from the country’s top explainer. You’re going to give your cousin shit for that when (if?) she comes by again. You’ll also note that she didn’t say a word about _how_ to use the bracelet to access the phone, but whatever, puzzle solving, it’s a way to pass the time.

Not much of a puzzle either. You hold the bracelet in front of the screen, trying to spot if there’s a port of some kind you need to find. But the moment your wrist gets near, one of the beads glows blue and the screen lights up. It reads _‘welcome, N’Jadaka’_. In English. You don’t know how to feel about either of those things, and you don’t like the way that uncertainty knots up inside you. You wall those feelings right off and set them aside to look at later. _Later._

For the moment, you’ve got some boundaries to test. Time to see how naive Wakanda is about their criminals.

Not as naive as you might have guessed, it turns out, though you’re pretty sure you’ve spotted a workaround or two that could do some real damage if you wanted to. Something to keep in mind if you need it in the future. Net access is much less restricted than you’d thought, though you try to visit a couple known malicious sites and you get cut right off. Is that because they know the sites are no good, or because they’re actively scanning as you go? That’s a question that could use an answer.

You’re cut off from _all_ social media. No login privileges, not even any anonymous commenting privileges. You can access what’s available without an account, but it looks like they’re doing their best to stop you from saying anything of your own online. Does that extend to image files or is it just text entered as text? Not that you’ve got leverage here to exert much influence, no matter what you tried to say. And they’ve gotta be monitoring everything you do, no reason to blow things now and sabotage any future opportunities.

Besides, you still don’t know what you’d want to do, and you don’t trust yourself to have the energy to follow through on actually doing it. Physically, you’re itching to be moving, and even if you were unconscious, you can _tell_ you haven’t been active for the last four days. Mentally, you just want to sleep for a month or five.

It is a surprise when you go to catch up on current events (and hope that your own info is up to date enough that you can spot any censoring or bias in what they filter for you) and find T’Challa plastered all over the headlines.

 _Oakland._ You don’t know how to feel about that. Angry? Satisfied? More than anything… you feel numb. You let your eyes skim past the particulars of location, because you already _know_ where he must have gone, and you don’t want to read about it. You focus more on all the reputable news sites still calling the Wakandan ship a UFO. Some of them have caught up, and you guess that America’s probably still a little predisposed to assume alien spacecraft ever since New York, but still. That shit’s hilarious.

And they’re probably behind in the corrections because of the other big headline dominating the scene, because just look at that, there’s your cousin addressing the UN and spilling all the Wakandan secrets that generations and generations have spent their lives hoarding and hiding away. There’s video of the airship taking off from Oakland. Other videos of T’Challa demoing some little bits and pieces of tech for this group and that one. Real funny, when your dad died trying to steal and share just a little piece of what Wakanda had, and here’s your cousin just giving it away like it’s no big deal.

Probably you ought to feel some sense of satisfaction that _you_ helped do this.

Mostly you just feel kind of sick.

You toss the phone onto the desk, screen down, and turn away so you don’t have to look at it. You do a little pacing, just so, y’know. Get moving, get your legs working right again after a few days in bed. You poke and prod at the walls, looking for secrets. Some of it— Parts of the wall _feel_ like they might be a screen, and one or two bits light up when you hold your bracelet up against them, but you don’t know what they can even do, and you just let them power down without bothering with anything else.

The closet isn’t totally empty, which is a surprise. The clothing isn’t _yours,_ which is good, because that would be a creepy step, even for Wakanda. But it’s like the phone. The clothing just… _says_ America. Nothing overt. But you know it’s not going to be what the rest of the country is wearing, and your gut squirms, and you don’t know whether to appreciate the comfortable familiarity or resent the assumption that of _course_ you don’t want their clothing, you’re not _Wakandan_ after all.

Yeah, time to shut the closet and not look at that either. There’s a door tucked in one corner of your cell that leads to a little bathroom, and you take a long, hot shower as an excuse for not dealing with the rest of this. You come out of it feeling refreshed, if not at ease. Course, that means that you need to go back to the closet again to get dressed, and you try not to get frustrated over being rattled enough that you’re failing to think anything and everything through. You toss on jeans and a tee and tell yourself it doesn’t matter anyways, because hey! Locked in a cell.

And there you go, you’ve exhausted the entertainment potential of the room. Except for the phone you’re still ignoring. There’s plenty of internet you could waste the day on, plenty of internet where you don’t have to hear _shit_ about Wakanda this and Wakanda that, but… later, maybe. No reason to rush. You’ve got space to work out, and ignore the voice in your head saying you should have thought of this before showering, but you only manage a few minutes of that before you decide you’re too restless for this. Then you manage maybe an hour of sitting and doing nothing.

And okay, you’re officially done with this. You oughta be ashamed you’re reaching a snapping point this soon, but you’ve got your reasons, okay? And you’re _done._

You’ve got no windows, got no vents anywhere near large enough to work with. The door feels plenty solid, and the walls feel worse. Even if you dismantled your furniture to get some tools, what are the odds the whole room is vibranium-reinforced anyways? This country is ridiculous.

Of course, it looks like there’s some kind of access pad in here. No keypad code entry that you can see, though it could be some kind of gesture input. Or a fingerprint scan? Whichever way, you’d be shit out of luck. Should’ve watched your cousin leave, so at least you’d know how it works. You push a little at the seam between the halves of the door, then try to wedge your fingers in the gap, but you don’t get anywhere with it.

That not-a-keypad, though. That has to be the answer to this. Odds are low you can hack it or bust it in a way that leaves the door open, but you never know. Would be the safe way to design egress points, but you’ve got real doubts that they designed their jail with _safety_ as a main priority. Maybe you can hack it with your phone. If everything’s all science fiction anyways, why not? Maybe that’s the ‘other things’ your cousin told you it could do.

You squat down, looking at the… whatever it is. Sensor? It looks like a uniform texture, but that doesn’t mean regions aren’t mapped for touch. You reach out one hand to touch it, and freeze as your bracelet suddenly flashes blue, and the sensor flashes blue in return. And then the door slides open.

You’re on your feet in a moment, frozen, looking at the open door, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Nothing happens. You edge a little closer to the exit, keeping your eyes on the door, but nothing… happens. It just stays right where it is, open, like this is just any old room and you’re here on a casual social visit. This has to be some kind of trap. What the _hell._

This doesn’t make sense, and it isn’t making any more sense the longer you look at it. You eye the ridiculous magic science beads in your bracelet with some suspicion, but— It’s not like there’s anybody here to see you looking silly, so why not.

You clear your throat, feeling incredibly ridiculous and maybe a _little_ like a spaceship captain, and say, “Kimoyo beads, call Shuri.”

It works, which is the first surprise, and your cousin answers, which is the second.

She just demands, “What?”

Jesus, it’s a hologram video chat. You turn a little, so that hopefully she can see the open door behind you, and say, “I can just go?”

“No, _obviously_ not.”

There you go. You feel yourself tense up again, but feel some nice satisfaction at spotting the trap. But your cousin is still talking.

“Stay in that facility, don’t just— I don’t know, don’t go outside and get lost or fall off a cliff or whatever. I just finished putting you back together, that was like five minutes ago.”

“Five minutes, right.” Your voice sounds a little distant to you. You’re trying to process that, trying to spot a lie or a trick or whatever this is, because it’s gotta be something.

Shuri waves dismissively. _“Around_ five minutes, it doesn’t matter. If your kimoyo beads give you access, you have access. I told you that.”

You focus back on the hologram. “You remember what I said about explanations? Because this—”

“I said they do _everything._ This counts as everything. I covered all contingencies, you’re just sulking because you can’t keep up.”

“So if I told my beads I wanted to travel back in time…?”

She sniffs. “Of course that won’t work, don’t be stupid.”

And then she cuts off the call before you can answer. That’s fine, it doesn’t matter. You realize you’re grinning, and you don’t even mind. The door is still open, and the hallway outside is wide and open, with a high ceiling, and you can hear sounds of distant conversation. The bracelet is still your futuristic ankle monitor, and you know you’ve gotta be on thin, thin ice right now, you aren’t fooling yourself. Still. You pause for a moment to collect your phone, then another moment to center yourself. And after that you take a deep breath and walk through the door and take your first steps out into the rest of the building

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/171817676611/all-the-stars-are-closer-spockandawe-marvel)


End file.
